


The Key

by EchoFall



Category: Original Work
Genre: ?? sort of, Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Death, Evil birds, Gore, Possession, Riddles, Spiders, The guy watches himself get eaten?, lots of blood, read the tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:28:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22747066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoFall/pseuds/EchoFall
Summary: A man trapped inside an attic, with only a riddle to help him. Will he get out or will he - wait, are those bird calls?
Kudos: 3





	The Key

I knew it was old, but which of these musty boxes, here in this spider’s nest of an attic, would the key fit? The key was small, with only a couple notches. I was attempting to shove it into any keyhole I could find, trying to figure out what the key opened. But I was having no such luck. Every lock I had tried to fit the key into was too big, I would need to find a much smaller box. 

I was locked in here, the only clue I had to help me escape was a small note written on a torn piece of parchment, tied with a string to the key, keeping them together. The only thing written on the note was a riddle that went; ‘Find me where the spiders gather. Take me into your life, and let the others die. But if you fail and don’t choose me, then you’ll be stuck here with all this misery, dying in vain while we all suffer.’ I didn’t want to know what the note meant. I just wanted to be free. So I obeyed the note and went to find ‘where the spiders gather’. I was trying to find the most spider-filled place in this musty attic, obviously where the box would be hidden. When suddenly, I heard quiet, stressed bird calls. The calls echoed in the small, cramped space, making it very hard to track where it was coming from.

I furrowed my eyebrows in concentration, trying to find where the sound was coming from. I was shutting my eyes, twisting my head around as if I were an owl, stalking a mouse scuttering through the snow in the dead of the night. I eventually managed to pinpoint where the bird calls were coming from. I turned and stumbled my way across the small room. 

When I reached the corner the sound was echoing from, I was shocked. There was a small and rusty, but fancy-looking golden birdcage sitting on the ground. The birdcage was covered in spiders, all watching from their twisting webs that were covering the whole outside of the cage. Inside there were three pitch-black birds, no larger than a thrush each. One bird was laying on the ground, dead. The second was ripping apart the first one, gulping down small pieces of meat like it was the only meal it had seen in weeks. And judging by how skinny all three of the birds were, that may have been true. The last bird was sitting on a rusting ledge, the only structure on the interior of the cage. It looked seconds away from collapsing. The bird was crying out while watching the second bird tear apart what I assumed to be its friend.

I gasped and quickly ducked down, shoving the small key I was holding into the lock. To my surprise, when I turned the key, the faded metal door swung open. The words on the note started glowing. I carefully pulled the key out and read the note again. The words had changed and now the note only said: ‘Choose only one of the ones who can still soar above the sky, the other shan't live long, for the two still alive are both halves of the same soul. Choose quick or The Ravenous shall get a larger feast than first thought.’ I was confused until it all clicked into place like a puzzle, and I fully understood what the cryptic note meant, besides from one small part: what the note meant by ‘The Ravenous’. Suddenly, it was like I placed the final piece of the puzzle down and could see the finished picture. The note was talking about the spiders surrounding the cage. I had to rescue one of the two birds that were still alive leaving the other to be eaten along with the carcass currently in the cage.

The spiders were slowly creeping over to the opened door of the cage. I immediately picked up the crying bird, then I thought I had made the right choice until I realized the tears coming from the remaining living bird still eating at the carcass; It’s movements much to mechanical. I peered into the bird I was holding’s eyes. They were red, and the bird was smirking the best a bird could.  
“You made the wrong choice…”  
The bird muttered in a deep voice, sounding almost amused. The door slammed shut and the bird was whispering what sounded like a curse in a language I didn’t understand and may have not even been English. As the chanting got louder, I felt myself losing touch with my body. The demonic eyes were the last thing I saw as I tumbled, the spiders I hadn’t noticed approaching me climbing over my immobile body.

I felt like I was awake, but I couldn’t move. As I desperately tried to twitch my toes or even close my eyes, I realised something was off. In the edges of my vision, I could see my body being eaten by spiders, my form was slumped over multiple boxes, and my blood ran from every angle as the disgusting sound of slurping filled my ears. If that was my body that I was viewing through tarnished golden bars, then what did that make me? The dead bird, my mind quickly filled in. I realised I could see a beak and a couple of midnight coloured feathers, and a strange emptiness in my chest cavity.

Then I felt pain; the shock had worn off. I wanted to squirm, to scream, to do anything but lay in agony. Through this burning pain, I heard a voice.  
“I’m sorry…”  
I looked up and saw the face of the cannibalistic bird. There were rivers of tears pouring through their eyes, and they seemed to be sobbing. I wanted nothing more than to comfort it. I heard a deep, unnatural chuckle and looked up, seeing the face of the red-eyed bird who I had thought was innocent. It moved its head in a that looked like it wanted me to look where it was gesturing, so I did. I almost wish I hadn’t. The bird who had been eating at the twisted corpse of the dead bird had just started to resume its job that I was assuming was forced upon it. I felt everything. Every sickening crunch of bone, every piece of my flesh that was hastily ripped off, ever harsh peck at an organ. I felt it all. 

The red-eyed bird’s smile grew to an unnatural size, and its eyes started to glow. I watched as the bird eating at me started to sob even harder, its shoulders shaking. In my peripheral vision, I could see that the spiders were still mauling my old body, and that was when I realised that the blood covering the entire bottom of the cage wasn’t just from the body of the bird. Everything was starting to get too much, and it all began swirling together, and every pain I felt somehow became so, so much worse, if that was even possible. 

All I wished is that the pain would stop, that I would just die. It was funny, really. I never expected to be wishing to die. Maybe I should’ve listened to my friends before messing with the open grave. I really shouldn’t have touched that gravestone, even it did have my full name and exact birthdate on it. The coffin in it seemed to have banging and tweets coming from it, and how was I supposed to resist touching something like that? God, I had so many regrets. As I was reminiscing how I got myself into this situation, the universe seemed to grant me one last wish. My eyes feel shut, never to open again. The chuckling of the red-eyed burned echoed in my ears, and its blood-red eyes were the last thing I saw as my conscious faded out for the second time that day.


End file.
